The three-day session
was attended by representatives from the Global System for Mobile
Association (GSMA), International
Telecommunication Union and African
Telecommunications Union.

Also in attendance were
international and regional organisations as well as private-sector participants
including AINMT, ATDI, Avanti Communications, Inmarsat, Facebook and MTN.

Over the past three
decades, the CTO has run numerous capacity development and training programmes
for radio communications engineers and policymakers on spectrum. At one point,
the organisation was known mainly for such technical programmes.

"As mobile and
wireless communication technologies continue to improve, and as many more of us
access and increasingly also depend on these technologies, spectrum is becoming
an evermore important resource," he said.

Taylor also said that
at the very least, spectrum's economic value has increased dramatically from
what it was only 20 years ago, and today it is no longer a mere natural
resource or commodity for many of CTO member countries, it is increasingly also
a life-critical and life-changing resource.

“5G data and
machine-to-machine wireless networks alone will inevitably increase ICTs
contribution to the economy of those countries, but the underlying technologies
require more spectrum and international consensus on how it should be
allocated, hence our decision to dedicate a whole event to this subject," Mr Taylor said.

The event was
officially opened by Honourable
Minette Libom Li Likeng, Minister of Posts & Telecommunications of
Cameroon who also called on regulators to maintain transparency and fairness
when assigning spectrum.